When comparing Maltron Letter Layout vs Row Swap (QWDFGY), the Slant community recommends Row Swap (QWDFGY) for most people. In the question“What are the best keyboard layouts for programming?”Row Swap (QWDFGY) is ranked 7th while Maltron Letter Layout is ranked 8th. The most important reason people chose Row Swap (QWDFGY) is:

The swaps are strictly vertical. No letter changes fingers. Possibly even easier to learn than other minimal-change layouts like qwpr and Minimak-4.

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Pros

Pro

Highly optimized for frequency of use

This includes di- and tri-graphs, as well as the individual letter frequency.

Pro

Punctuation is also optimized

The comma and period are more frequent than KVJZXQ.

Pro

E on the thumb

E is the most used English letter by far at almost 13%.

Pro

Very easy to learn from QWERTY

The swaps are strictly vertical. No letter changes fingers. Possibly even easier to learn than other minimal-change layouts like qwpr and Minimak-4.

Pro

As effortless as Dvorak

It scores 2.122 on the Carpalx effort model, vs 2.098 for Dvorak (QWERTY is 3.000).

Pro

Common Ctrl-shortcuts don't move

Most letters are in their QWERTY position, including the important AZXCV. Those that moved are very close to their old positions.

Pro

Good for Vim users

HJKL are still in order.

Cons

Con

Requires a physical keyboard

The Maltron layout requires an expensive physical Maltron keyboard. Most layout options are a simple change in software, to remap existing keys. (Touch typists mostly don't look at the labels anyway.) But there's no way to add the required thumb keys for this layout in software.